#the swifts a dictionary of scoundrels

[detectivereads]

The Swifts A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln

5/5

This review is fan entertainment, I’m not being paid.

If you looked up “amazing” in the dictionary you would find a picture of this book.

This book gave me high hopes that it would give me a challenge to enjoy reading, and for a middle-grade book, it has given me the run around. Halfway through the book I had so many emotions, a lot of the time I was feeling a lot of frustration towards some of the characters, which I will get into in a bit. What I want to say is this is one of the best middle-grade books I have read this year.

We have a very quirky family that is getting ready for the annual family reunion. This family has unique names, and some (if not most) believe that what your name means in the dictionary is how you turn out to be.

For example: one of the characters (one that frustrated me to no end and kept me questioning myself and the book of how they heck did this man get his job or clients) name is Gumshoe Swift, as his name entitles, he is a “detective” but seeing how he views matter that pertains to a crime and not really listening to advice (or use common sense). He doesn’t wear gloves when handling evidence, he is so sure that women can’t be criminals, he even questions the scientist of the group of why she was going to get fingerprint powder, now I will give him a point that the criminal could easy wipe the evidence, but he still should have checked.

 Our main character is named Shenanigan Swift. She is the youngest out of her family (not the whole family out of her immediate family) she has two older sisters, the eldest is name Felicity Swift and the middle child Phenomena Swift. 

The whole of the book is about a treasure on the family land that was hidden by their ancestor after he murdered his brother for his part of the inheritance, and when the first brother died, their sister comes back and started a family reunion to find the treasure. So, the family would get together led by either a Matriarch or Patriarch of the family.

Shenanigan is then led on the adventure of a lifetime. Where relatives are slowly being bumped off and fingers are being pointed at other family members. Family bonds between family members and Shenanigan are tested.

When I got half way through the book, my mind went into overdrive of whodunit, I was thinking about this one particular character because the clues led back to them, but when the reveal happen it wasn’t the person I originally thought but a completely different person. I was one shocked but had an inkling that it was them, and two I wanted full on deck this guy for what they have done to the people around them.

I digress, this book is an amazing read, a prefect closed door mystery where you won’t know what will happen, there is an array of characters that finding the criminal does make it a challenge.

I am hoping and praying that there is going to be more books in the series I want more thrilling mysteries!!

[kingsbridgelibraryteens]

Middle School Monday: The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln, with illustrations by Claire Powell 

Shenanigan Swift is a little sister and a troublemaker. Growing up with her sisters Felicity and Phenomena, plus Uncle Maelstrom and Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude, Shenanigan definitely lives up to her name by making lots of mischief. But since everyone in the Swift family was named by a random word in the Family Dictionary, is it possible that Shenanigan has no control over what kind of person she is?

Shenanigan is obsessed with finding the treasure that was rumored to be hidden in their house by her Grand-Uncle Vile. Unfortunately, everyone else in the family wants to find the treasure, too. And when the Swift Family Reunion begins, there will be many more family members all searching at the same time. But when one of those relatives pushes Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude down the stairs, things get a lot more complicated. Will Shenanigan be able to locate the treasure AND find the criminal in their midst?

Give this book to older kids and younger teens who enjoy smart protagonists, twisty mysteries, and suspenseful stories!

[fictional-detective-tournament]

Fictional Detective Tournament!

Rules:

Please only submit characters through the attached form.

The submission deadline is October 22nd.

As the name suggests, no real people. If you have an ambiguous where it’s someone playing a character in a roleplay, feel free to explain how they count as a fictional character and not as the real person playing them and I will consider it.

I will accept different versions of Sherlock Holmes on top of regular Sherlock Holmes as long as they’re intended to be different from regular Sherlock Holmes. (Ie Fate/Grand Order Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty the Patriot Sherlock Holmes, etc.)

I am aware that this tournament has been done before. I do not mean to disrespect anyone who has run this tournament before. I simply would like to run one myself because I love detectives and want to spotlight some of the lesser known ones that I love, as well as ones that are submitted.

Please do not submit characters from media where an author who is openly problematic is still alive and actively profiting off of the work. (Harry Potter, Rurouni Kenshin, etc.) This is my first time trying this, so I don’t have a banlist prepared, hence the broadness. I will look over characters after submission and if I feel that a piece of media could fall under this, I will ask for further opinions.

I will also take characters who aren’t explicitly referred to as detectives if they spend a lot of time in the media they’re from investigating and or trying to solve a mystery. There will a section in the form for justifications and explanations if necessary.

Characters based on real people are allowed as long as they aren’t meant to actually be the real person they represent.

No OCs. Otherwise I would be tempted to include my *7* detective OCs. But feel free to tell me about your detective OCs in the asks and maybe I’ll run that sometime.

Please denote if the character you want me to accept is from an 18+ source. I will accept them if there are SFW pictures of them, I would just like to know so that I can be careful when searching and can tag the polls with them accordingly.

Characters auto accepted because they are the host’s blorbos: Lord El Melloi II/Waver Velvet, All the detectives from the ADA from Bungo Stray Dogs plus Yukito Ayatsuji from Bungo Stray Dogs Another, the main quintent from Tantei Gakuen Q, Lady Love Dies from Paradise Killer, Shinichi Kudo/Conan Edogawa from Detective Conan, and the main characters of The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels (Please read this book.) However, I will accept propaganda for these characters! If I don’t get any, I will write some myself, but I appreciate hearing other people gush about characters I love.

Please be respectful of everyone involved. People being rude in the tags will be blocked.

The form is here!:

About the Host!

I’m Zero! My main blog is at @zero-on-the-clocktower . I’m 19 and use any pronouns. I love detectives and mysteries in general and am happy to give you recommendations if you’d like.

[librarycomic]

The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln, illustrated by Claire Powell. Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2024. 9780593533239. 352 pp. https://www.powells.com/book/-9780593533239?partnerid=34778&p_bt

Most of the Swifts have odd names you'd find in a dictionary, and, once named, they know their roles.

Shenanigan Swift lives in a strange, 17th-century manor, her family's ancestral home, with her Aunt Schadenfreude, Uncle Maelstrom, Cook, and her two older sisters, Phenomena and Felicity. She's been quietly mapping the place for years in an attempt to find the treasure hidden there by Vile Swift.

Inheritance Swift arrives and announces she's called for a Swift Family Reunion. Relatives are soon milling about, ready to tear the house apart to find the lost fortune. After Aunt Schadenfreude explains the rules, she also announces that in three days she'll be choosing her replacement as family matriarch. Then someone tries to kill her.

Shenanigan vows revenge. Plus she needs to beat her relatives to the treasure. The mystery that follows involves more deaths, a duel, deception, suspicion, a secret room, a library full of traps, and a cousin who refuses to use their dictionary-given name.

It's great fun and not nearly as adult as all of that "murder" might make it sound. Lincoln's storytelling skills are top-notch, and Powell's illustrations add to the book's Gorey-esque feel. (Her art reminds me of Warwick Johnson-Caldwell's in the best way.) This is a mystery kids and adults will love, and I've already given it to a few friends and family members as a gift. A sequel is due out later this year.

[redgoldsparks]

March Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Four of the books I read this month were for the Trans Right Readathon, which I participated in from Mar 20-27 and donated money to the Transgender Law Center. Reviews below the cut: 

The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln (Dutton Books for Young Readers) A whimsical, witty debut middle grade murder mystery full of word play and puns. The Swifts are an ancient English family with many quirky rituals- one of them is the tradition of naming every new child by opening the dictionary and pointing out a word thought to determine their character; another is the massive family reunion they host every ten years when Swifts from around the world gather at the family manor, a decaying three story mansion, to try and find a massive treasure hoard hidden by an ancestor. Shenanigan Swift, youngest of three sisters who still actively live in the house, is determined that during this upcoming reunion she will be the one to find the treasure once and for all. But almost immediately, fights behind to erupt between the contentious Swifts, and a scream in the hallway leads to the discovery of a body at the bottom of the stairs, and then a deadly Scrabble duel, and then a bloody accident in the library... before she knows it, Shenanigan is searching not for a treasure hoard but for a murderer. This book includes nonbinary, trans, and queer characters and an overall message of being true to one's self despite societal and familiar pressures and expectations. An excellent read for anyone who enjoys a good all-ages tale.

Queen of the Tiles by Hannah Alkaf read by Catherine Ho (Salaam books/Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers) Najwa's world centered around her charismatic, beautiful, popular best friend Trina and their shared passion for competitive Scrabble. Then Trina collapsed and died during a tournament, and Najwa was thrown into the confusion of depression and grief. Finally, a year later, Najwa feels able to return to her first Scrabble tournament since the death of her friend. She wants to win in Trina's memory and earn her old title, Queen of the Tiles. But then someone starts posting on the dead girl's instagram account, taunting messages that hint that the death was a murder, and that the players might even now be in danger. Najwa does her best to unravel the events of a year before, navigating gaps in her own memory, and a tangle of the envy, hatred, admiration and love the Scrabble community had for Trina. This is an engaging, diverse, complex mystery that kept me guessing until the very end. Full of wordplay and etymology trivia.

The Anthropocene Reviewed written and read by John Green (Dutton) I started listening to the podcast of The Anthropocene Reviewed years ago- maybe late 2019 or early 2020? For me these essays are colored with the bittersweet poignancy of the early covid period, and indeed the book references covid, collective health, and vaccines regularly in essays on small pox and more. I had planned to re-listen to the whole book, but I ended up missing the lovely sound editing of the podcast version so I only ended up listening to the last 25% to hear all of the essays which were exclusive to the book ("Winter Mix" to the end). This book is my favorite of John Green's work to date, and I'd recommend it even if you've bounced off his novels. 

Terry Pratchet: A Life in Footnotes: The Official Biography by Rob Wilkins (Doubleday) I've read 30+ of Terry Pratchett's 50+ books, but I didn't know very much about his life before reading this biography. I never had the pleasure of hearing him speak at a convention, or of seeing him at a signing, despite the extensive amount of touring he did from the mid-90s to the 2010s. This extensive biography was written by his long time assistant, friend, and collaborator Rob Wilkins, a huge Pratchett fan who went from working on organizing the UK Discworld conventions to working for Pratchett's agent to working for the author himself. It's funny and conversational, full of footnotes and silly asides, not unlike a Pratchett book in that regard. It takes nearly 90 pages to get through Pratchett's high school years; though to be fair, Pratchett published his first two short stories, bought his first typewriter, and attended his first few sci-fi conventions before he was out of high school. He was a tremendously dedicated worker, often writing two or more books a year once he quit his journalism and PR jobs to begin writing full time. This book is primarily about his creative work and extensive hobbies (gardening, beekeeping, raising goats and ducks, astronomy, silver-casting, brewing mead, building home electronics, playing computer games, forging his own sword) but skates lightly over his interpersonal relationships outside of professional collaborations. I did not leave it with a good sense of how his only daughter might have felt about having such a workaholic as a father, but I did leave it with a better sense of what fed and nourished his astonishing imagination, and the successes and stumbling blocks he met along the way. 

Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki (Drawn and Quarterly) Zoe and Dani, high school best friends now in their first year of college at two distant and different schools, reunite for a spring break in New York City in 2009. They have five days to cram in as much sight seeing and bonding as they can. But Dani brought one of her classmates, Fiona, and this third person injects an intense new energy into the dynamic. Dani wants to visit all of the biggest tourist attractions. Zoe wants to have some adult experiences she's never had before. And Fiona? Initially she wanted to ditch the other two, but then she decides Zoe is more interesting that the people she was going to meet up with, especially after Fiona manages to buy some weed from the desk manager at their hostel and Zoe turns out to have a fake ID. This is a smart, beautifully drawn story about the painful period between being a teen and becoming an adult, the growing pains of an old friendship, the addictive pull of a new crush, the struggle to figure out who you are and want to be against the backdrop of a foreign city. Fans of previous Tamaki collaborations will love this one as well. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advanced reader copy; preorder it now or look for it in stores in September 2023. 

Team Trash: A Time Traveler’s Guide to Sustainability by Kate Wheeler and Trent Huntington (Holiday House) A short, easy to read book on historical sustainability and recycling efforts for young readers. Two kids, Charlie and Oliver, are paired together for a science project and end up accidentally taking a time-traveling car made out of trash back in time to Pompeii, ancient Japan, early America, and more, to learn how people in different eras have handled their garbage. A fun, informative introduction to the topic for kids which includes with an example of how to contact legislators. Forthcoming in June 2023! 

Babel: An Arcane History by RF Kuang (HarperCollins) I read this for my book club, and we won't be holding our discussion of it until late April, so I might come back after that with more thoughts. For now, I'll say there were aspects of this book which I really enjoyed (the focus on the damage caused by colonization, the diverse cast, the unique magic system, the Oxford setting) but also multiple ways it felt bogged down by it's own length and some of the plot decisions. I'm normally a huge fan of a quirky or educational footnote (see: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell) but in the second half I felt like the footnotes were bleeding the tension out of the action and really taking away from my reading enjoyment. I wanted more from several of the lead characters emotional arcs. I wanted the plot turns of the second half to come sooner. I wanted some of the multiple main character deaths to be given a bit more space to breath. Still, I'm glad I read this and I think it's a very thought provoking book, maybe more so because it's so far from perfect. 

Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders, read by Hynden Walch (Tor Teen) Tina has known since she was a kid that her destiny lies beyond Earth. From the outside, she looks like a regular high schooler, someone who loves her friends, has a passionate sense of right and wrong, and never passes by an opportunity to stand up to a bully or a corrupt local business owner. But in her chest is a star beacon which will someday activate and call an alien spaceship to pick her up and return the memories of her previous life. Tina is the clone of a famous and beloved space general from the Royal Fleet and she can't WAIT to get to the business of saving people for real. But when Tina's ship and future come for her, she learns that battles are messy and fighting comes with causalities. This is the first book of a trilogy, which asks the questions: what are acceptable losses when fighting for a greater good? How far will you go to save your friends? How about a girl you just met, but are already half in love with? This series is fairly light in the realism and sci-fi world building departments, and cares about its characters maybe more than its plot, but its delightfully queer, trans, and full of heart. 

Come Tumbling Down written and read by Seanan McGuire (Tor dot com) The stories that center on Jack, Jill, and the Moors continue to be some of the strongest installments in this series. In this one, Jack reappears at the school for Wayward Children- in her twin sister's body. She needs help, and she needs it fast, and despite the sign outside the school which reads "No Quests", a group of Eleanor West's students once again step through a magical door to save a world not their own. 

Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore  It's been a while since I read a novel all in one day! I picked this up for the Trans Rights Readathon (running on all bookish social media near you from March 20-27 2023) and I absolutely loved it. The two main characters, Bastian and Lore, are both nonbinary, both Mexican-American, and both neurodivergent. Bastian lives by the shore of a lake, the source of many myths, but only Bastian seems to be able to access the liminal, magical space beneath its surface. Until they meet Lore, who can also see the way the waves lift off the shore to become a path. But Bastian and Lore both end up pouring things into the lake they're unwilling to face- bad memories, traumas, and the hateful whispers of cruel classmates. The lake can only hold so much, and soon these painful things start flooding the shores, into the streets and homes of the teens. The only way to quiet the waters is to face what they've tried to drown. This a fast, engaging read and one of the best books about living with ADHD and dyslexia I've ever encountered. It makes me want to seek out more stories with this kind of representation, and this kind of emotional, visual language! 

Self Made Boys by Anna-Marie McLemore  Another book I finished all in one day for the Trans Right Readathon (March 20-27 2023!) This Gatsy retelling casts Nick Carraway as Nicolás Caraveo, a 17-year-old trans boy from Wisconsin. He wants to move to New York not for the glamour but because he has a head for numbers and wants to make money working on Walls Street to support his parents and establish himself as a man. His cousin Daisy finds him a cottage in West Egg, but when he reunions with Daisy he's shocked to realize she's passing as white and lying about her past to her sort-of fiancé, Tom, a man who pretends at tolerance while exhibiting casual racism. Then Nick meets his other neighbor, the infamous Jay Gatsby, who throws outrageous and extravagant parties but is more similar to Nick than most people can see. This retelling adds an insurance investigation about a missing $350,000 pearl necklace; a visit to an underground gay club; and cast full of queer characters, all trying to make some kind of safety or place for themselves in the world. I'd love to see this version added to school reading lists along side the original!

Prophet by Sin Blance and Helen Macdonald (Grove Press) At the start of this military thriller, set in 2010, a sergeant dies in a mysterious fire on a US base in the UK. Around the base, dozens of objects appear ranging from familiar, nostalgic childhood toys, to a full American style diner in the middle of an empty field. A pair of unique agents are called in to investigate these circumstances: reserved, rule following Colonel Adam Rubenstein, and chaotic Sunil Rao, unranked, pulled from rehab after an overdose attempt. Rao as the ability to spot fakes and forgeries at a glance, and also to tell when anyone is lying. Except Adam. Adam is the only person who confounds Rao's power, and the only one who can manage his unpredictable moods and whims. This unlikely team chase the threads of the mystery back to Colorado, into an experimental government lab, where they find a bizarre substance effecting people's psyches to produce physical objects linked to memory. Everyone seems to react to it in the same way... except Rao and Adam. The book is a little over long, but full of witty dialogue, very original, and the plot intrigue is underpinned by the emotional tension between the two leads, who are pulled together by curiosity, attraction, and increasingly, by real feelings. There were a few missed opportunities that I think could have ramped up the romantic stakes even farther, but still, I loved that a cautious queer romance formed the emotional core of the story.

Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me written and read by Janet Mock This candid, conversational memoir is read by the author in the audiobook and I really loved hearing it literally in her voice. Mock begins the book writing of being a freshman in college in her native Hawaii, of working briefly in a strip club as a dancer, of meeting the man who she would marry and live with on and off through her twenties, of following her academic ambition and writing skills to Rhode Island and then New York City, of friendships, boyfriends, heart breaks and career breaks. Mock pursued the goal of becoming a culture magazine editor with remarkable clear-eyed practicality and worked her way into higher and higher positions even as a recent grad. Along the way she gained confidence in herself, her place in the world, and her unique voice as a trans woman of color. She went from living stealth to deciding she wanted to share her story calmly and compassionately with the world. 

[herald-caliber]

“The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels”

“The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels” is the only resource you need. Shenanigan Swift, a small sister with a big personality, sets out to solve a murder mystery at a family reunion while also looking for a long-lost treasure in this outstanding debut book by Beth Lincoln. READ MORE

[bookclubforghosts]

What kind of books is the ghost book club currently reading?

Idk if you mean this strictly as a joke based on my url or if you actually wanna know fhdgsjf buuuut

Last month, I read several plant books (The Unexpected Houseplant, Indoor Kitchen Gardening, The Green Dumb Guide) and one middle grade fiction novel (The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels) which was really cute and silly, it’s about a treasure hunt as well as meant to teach kids how to define who they are themselves outside of their family’s expectations.

This month, I’m on a Mary H.K. Choi kick. Right now I’m reading Emergency Contact at the recommendation of a friend and I reread Yolk earlier this month. Her writing is very nostalgic to me. While some turns of phrase were meme references and thus didn’t age great, I do still really enjoy her characters and it’s a good comfort read. I also started reading The Murderbot Diaries. I’m not always a big fan of science fiction but I am trying to challenge myself and I enjoy the premise so far (still on book one……..)

Next month, I aim to finish reading The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone which I keep starting and getting distracted and not finishing LMFAO and then either The Year I Stopped Trying by Katie Heaney, Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire, or Godly Heathens by Edgmon.

[readingtrend]

The Swifts: A Dictionary Of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln

Find the #1 NYT Bestseller The Swifts: A Dictionary Of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln from your local library. Click Check on Amazon to read book reviews on Amazon. Click Google Preview to read chapters from Google Books if available. Click Find in Library to check book availability at your local library. If the default library is not correct, follow Change Local Library to reset it. The Swifts: A…

[libraryleopard]

January reads

The Lie: A Memoir of Two Marriages, Catfishing, and Coming Out by William Dameron

From From by Monica Youn

All the Dead Lie Down by Kyrie McCauley

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

Faebound by Sara El-Arifi

One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Sugar Work by Katie Marya

Meadowlands by Louise Glück

Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens by Tanya Boteju

Caroline’s Heart by Austin Chant

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Bellocq’s Ophelia by Natasha Trethewey 

Sing Anyway by Anita Kelly

Our Favorite Songs by Anita Kelly

Countries of Origin by Javier Fuentes

Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

We the Animals by Justin Torres

White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link

The Immeasurable Depth of You by Maria Ingrande Mora

Trace Evidence by Charif Shanahan

The Lost Arabs by Omar Sakr

The No-Girlfriend Rule by Christen Randall

The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels by Beth Lincoln

In the Form of a Question: The Joys and Rewards of a Curious Life by Amy Schneider

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman

Ask a Queer Chick: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life for Girls Who Dig Girls by Lindsey King-Miller

[detectivereads]

New Books!!!!!!

Hi Everyone,

Ok ok I was looking around at future books that will come out later this year, and on the author Tumblr account and I saw some of their artwork of Deephaven of Nev and Danny, but reading the post that went with the artwork I saw that book 2 is coming later this year.

I am super excited for Book 2 and I can’t wait to read it. I am so happy this year a bunch of books that I got last year are getting a second book in their series.

The Swifts: A Gallery of Rouges- I’m super excited about this book, I loved the first book so much and I recommend it to anyone that likes a mystery. But the Second book in their series sounds amazing, it takes place in Paris and there is art heist going on!

Scrimshaw: A Deephaven Mystery- this sounds amazing as well something is going down at the school and it’s up to Nev and Danny to figure out what’s going on.

[asfaltics]

fdela, folded folding

  del peccaclox fdela WOW*       1 y guardar la autoridad fdela persona Real       2   Indifference . fdela volonté,       3 he said, No Man can den , but ’that-there is great fDela] of       4   for he had got a Letter from one Madam fDela-val ...that fDela-val had writ to know       5   Deferno time, fdela- ye have dangerous ends; . F-“ter and cry,       6   FDela Li       7 fdela lumière,       8   the part of .fdela, and, although evidently labouring under the effects of a heavy cold, she acquitted herself exceedingly well; ...       9   4 M. F du R 4c. du F de la D. 18 F de la D 3ec. du R.   26 F de la D à la 2e 6. de la D. 27 F de la D3e c. du R.       10   THE PLAC F. D. E. L. A. CON       11 I ETY () F D E L A V       12   i i FDELA Leat araute       13 per me°fdela. v-       14   fDela’pse, sb. Obs. rare.       15 fDELA I | .c_ \ - , GTARK 1 _’_._.*J. .       16   Fdela. bonds .... .. o lgg -lg       17 from “P’fdela Grange”       18   45243   FDEJE     folded 45244   FDEKC     folding   45245   FDELA     Folder-s (of) (for)       19 45245   FDELA     will it fill       20   fdela. usgue. elect, I, ore-o, fire       21 FDEKZ   FDELA       22 a boundary in C   (fdelΔ)       23  

sources (many in Spanish, of which but a few used) and (potentially) these (not pursued) and some telegraphic codes at hand

1 OCR confusion over “si la memoria del pecado: y de la penaen” and this from the preview : Iflq tue-11102111 del peccaclox fdela WOW* [ape-1a y 114111011 1102 111' :.2chch aclaendwsm elcfpjnmq nnefiw'o . - u, . , , f .' FZ e11'110 q 1108110me fi qmemdeleqllesas q [e dimosSl el bf1 dejjetosy'eamoefl.. e] key fu pam-c mquyeaclo ... ex Francisco de Osuna (1492 or 1497 – c. 1540, *), Abecedario espiritual Primera Parte (Junta, 1544) : fol. viii 2 ex Thomas Cerdan de Tallada (¿1530?-1614), Veriloquium en Reglas de Estado, segun derecho divino, natural, canonico, y civil, y leyes de Castilla... (Valencia, 1604) : 27 wikipedia (in Spanish) see also José Luis Bermejo Cabrero, his entry on Cerdán (Jurista, abogado en ejercicio y escritor político) at DB~e (El Diccionario Biográfico electrónico) and via google translation 3 ex François Antoine Pomey (S.J.) Le grand dictionaire royal, I. François-Latin-Alleman / II. Latin-Alleman-François / III Alleman-François-Latin... (Cologne and Frankfurt, 1715) : 511 4 ex Thomas Osborne, [scoundrel, and] 1st Duke of Leeds (1632-1712, *), The English Subject’s Right to the Liberty of His Person, Asserted in the Argument made by the Earl of Danby (afterwards Duke of Leeds) at the Court of King’s Bench, on his Motion for Bail, after an Imprisonment of above Forty Months in the Tower of London (London, 1722) : 12 OCR misread of italics, and loose letterspacing for “that there is great Delay of Justice (to say no worse of it)” 5 two OCR misreads of italicized “Madam Deval,” ex Popish Intrigues and Cruelty Plainly Exemplified in the Affecting Case and Narrative of Mr.s Frances Shaftoe (The Second Edition, London, 1745) : 39 an earlier (1707) edition 6 OCR misread, for: “Reig. Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends; Enter and cry, the Dauphin ! presently, And then do execution on the Watch.” The First Part of King Henry VI, Act 3 Scene 4. ex William Warburton (1698-1779), ed., The Works of Shakespear : Volume the Fourth (Dublin, 1747) : 427 7 OCR misread of table at 90ºccw (re: Indian tribes and their locations), within Query XI. A description of the Indians (Aborigines) established in that state, in Notes on the State of Virginia. Written by Thomas Jefferson. Illustrated with a map, including the States of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania (London, 1787) : 170 much on slavery, and the capacities of Blacks and Whites, in his passages devoted to “property” 8 OCR misread of “action répulsive fdela lumière” perhaps occasioned by ink show-through from next page 84 ex Les trois règnes de la nature, par Jacques Delille, avec des notes, Par M. Cuvier, de l’Institute, et autres Savants. Tome Premier. (Paris, 1808) : 83 9 snippet only, Paddy Kelly’s Budget; Or, A Pennyworth of Fun (1832) : 96 BL description 10 ex Almanach des échecs, contenant douze parties par les plus forts joueurs contemporains (Paris, 1852) : 10-11 11 OCR misreads of captions to (two) plates, The Illustrated London News (September 9, 1865) : 232 and 239 (Reception of the French Minister; The Place de la Conversation) 12 ex index (1889) to Laws of the State of Delaware (1887) : 35 OCR misread of, an act to amend / an Act to Incorporate the Homeopathic Hospital Society, o[f Dela]ware 13 ocr misread of the blurred word “formula,” in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections (1888) : here (snippet only) 14 ex a complex cluster of ocr misreads of smaller-type marginal note, and cross column error (not part of the fdela misread, however), in discussion of “Auction sale of real estate, and goods,” in Leonard A(ugustus) Jones, his Forms in Conveyancing: And General Legal Forms, Comprising precedents for ordinary use, and clauses adapted to special and unusual cases. With practical notes. Second edition, revised; 1891) : 200 15 some OCR confusion, snippet preview from previous word Delapse, but actual error is misread of † Delash v. Sc. Obs. from OF delacher, to discharge..., in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles Vol. 3 D (through Dizen), (1897) : here 16 imaginative OCR misreads of Map of the Ft. Wayne & Wabash Valley Traction Company and Connecting Lines (e.g., Porter (upper left), DELA/Ware, &c.), in The Commercial and Financial Chronicle : Street Railway Section (February 24, 1906) : 39 17 evidently ocr misread “4 % deb. bonds . . . . . . 0 100 -102” ex The Financial Review of Reviews (London, sometime in 1909, snippet view) : 164 another year (October-December, 1913) at archive.org 18 ocr misread/extrapolation from “Pte. de la Grange” in map of the northern coast of Haiti, ex Maps — Noteworthy Accessions (1909-10), in Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1910179 19 ex General Telegraphic Code (The Business Code Co., 1912; Worthington Pump & Machinery Corporation edition, 1921) : 298 20 ex Private Telegraph Code, The Pearson Engineering Corporation (The Business Code Co., 1912) : 299   aside — note same code word (and corresponding figure) — but different meanings — in these two codes (both compiled by The Business Code Co.)   21 ex W. Horton Spragge. Longmans’ Latin Course, Part III. Elementary Latin Prose, with complete syntax and passages for learning by heart. (New Impression; London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, 1914) : 204 22 ex names of cities and companies, in Private Telegraphic Code of Swift & Company (Peterson Cipher Code Corporation, 1931) : 287 23 ex chapter/section 5.2 “Hierarchy of Almost Nonevasive Complexes,” in Jakob Jonsson (*), his Simplicial Complexes of Graphs (2007) : 75  

[fictional-detective-tournament]

List of accepted characters:

This will be updated as I review submissions.

Lord El Melloi II/Waver Velvet from the Fate series

Ranpo Edogawa from Bungo Stray Dogs

Atsushi Nakajima from Bungo Stray Dogs

Osamu Dazai from Bungo Stray Dogs

Doppo Kunikida from Bungo Stray Dogs

Kenji Miyazawa from Bungo Stray Dogs

Junichiro Tanizaki from Bungo Stray Dogs

Kyoka Izumi from Bungo Stray Dogs

Akiko Yosano from Bungo Stray Dogs

Yukito Ayatsuji from Bungo Stray Dogs: Another Story

Ryuu Amakusa from Tantei Gakuen Q

Kyuu Renjo from Tantei Gakuen Q

Megumi Minami from Tantei Gakuen Q

Kintarou Tooyama from Tantei Gakuen Q

Kazuma Narusawa from Tantei Gakuen Q

Lady Love Dies from Paradise Killer

Shinichi Kudo/Conan Edogawa from Detective Conan

Shenanigan Swift from The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels

Phenomena Swift from The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels

Erf from The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels

Tsukauchi Naomasa from Boku no Hero Academia

Carlton Lassiter from Psych

Juliet O'Hara from Psych

Damien Darkblood from Invincible (The TV adaptation)

Shawn Spencer from Psych

Nick Valentine from Fallout 4

Will Graham from Hannibal

Goro Akechi from Persona 5

Neal Caffrey from White Collar

Erin Lindsay from Chicago PD

Aniq Adjaye from The Afterparty

Detective Danner from The Afterparty

Hank Voight from Chicago PD

Antonio Dawson from Chicago PD

Bruce Wayne/Batman from DC Comics

Tim Drake from DC Comics

Julia Argent from Carmen Sandiego

Alvin Olinsky from Chicago PD

Chase Devineaux from Carmen Sandiego

Shikanoin Heizou from Genshin Impact

Beverly Katz from Hannibal

Sam Vimes from Discworld

Herlock Sholmes from The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

Columbo from Columbo

Hercule Poirot from the Hercule Poirot series

Dick Gumshoe from Ace Attorney

Jay Halstead from Chicago PD

Kim Burgess from Chicago PD

Kevin Atwater from Chicago PD

Adam Ruzek from Chicago PD

Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg from the Commissaire Adamsberg series

Sean Roman from Chicago PD

Llewellyn Watts from Murdoch Mysteries

Sheldon Jin from Chicago PD

Parker Pyne from Parker Pyne Investigates

Karen Vick from Psych

Keith Mars from Veronica Mars

Harley Quin from The Mysterious Mr. Quinn

Ariadne Oliver from the works of Agatha Christie

Burton Guster from Psych

James Gordon from DC Comics

Veronica Mars from Veronica Mars

Nancy Drew from Nancy Drew

Henry Spencer from Psych

Vinnie Van Lowe from Veronica Mars

Chloe Decker from Lucifer

Dan Espinoza from Lucifer

Peter Burke from White Collar

Clinton Jones from White Collar

Reese Hughes from White Collar

Verges from Much Ado About Nothing

Auguste Dupin from the Dark Tales series

Blue from Blue’s Clues

Françoise Dupont from Fantômette

Renee Montoya from DC Comics

Kostas Charitos from the Kostas Charitos Series

Gertrude Loveday from the Ryder and Loveday series

Phryne Fisher from Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

Raquel Murillo from Money Heist

Miss Jane Marple from the works of Agatha Christie

Javert from Les Misérables

Inspector Gadget from Inspector Gadget

Patrick Jane from Mentalist

Daisy Day from Anansi Boys

Joss Carter from Person of Interest

Arthur Lester from Malevolent

Sherlock Holmes from Sherlock Holmes

Juno Steel from the Penumbral Podcast

Lilly Rush from Cold Case

Sherlock Holmes from the Beekeeper’s Picnic

Koichi Zenigata from Lupin III

Loki from Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok

Hildibrand Manderville from Final Fantasy XIV

Shotaro Hidari from Kamen Rider W

Terezi Pyrope from Homestuck

Hershel Layton from the Professor Layton series

Shuichi Saihara from Danganronpa

Miles "Tails" Prower from The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Kyoko Kirigiri from Danganronpa

Adrian Monk from Monk

Nightbeat from Transformers

L from Death Note

Dale Vandermeer from the Rusty Lake series

Yuma Kokohead from Master Detective Archives: Raincode

Vivia Twilight from Master Detective Archives: Raincode

Saguru Hakuba from Magic Kaito

Benoit Blanc from the Knives Out series

Inspector Cabanela from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Phoenix Wright from Ace Attorney

Nagito Komaeda from Danganronpa

Looker from Pokemon

Kaname Date from AI: The Somnium Files

Makoto Naegi from Danganronpa

Heiji Hattori from Detective Conan

Masumi Sera from Detective Conan

Little Red Riding Hood from Once Upon a Crime

Enola Holmes from Enola Holmes

Detective Pikachu from Detective Pikachu

Tom Barnaby from Midsomer Murders

Riz Gukgak from Fantasy High

Seiji Nanatsuki from Special 7: Special Crime Investigation Unit

Shiori Ichinose from Special 7: Special Crime Investigation Unit

Makoto Date from Yakuza

Richard Castle from Castle

Nick Burkhardt from Grimm

Dr Temperance Brennan from Bones

Catherine Chandler from Beauty and the Beast

Sokka from Avatar: the Last Airbender

Yagami Takayuki from Judgement

Workaholic Detective from Process of Elimination

Stone from City of Angels

Angus McDonald from The Adventure Zone

Gina Lestrade from The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

Bobby Bronson from Roar

Cellbit from QSMP

Hunch Curios from Mentopolis

Hazel Wong from Murder Most Unladylike

Frog Detective from the Frog Detective Series

Victorique de Blois from Gosick

Gabriel Utterson from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Sherlock Holmes from BBC Sherlock

Jacques Clouseau from Pink Panther

Olivia Dunham from Fringe

Joseph Rouletabille from the Rouletabille series

Daisy Wells from Murder Most Unladylike

Pippa Fitz-Amobi from A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series

Lisbeth Salander from the Millennium series

Wato Hojo from Process of Elimination

Ideal Detective from Process of Elimination

Renegade Detective from Process of Elimination

Techie Detective from Process of Elimination

Bookworm Detective from Process of Elimination

Posh Detective from Process of Elimination

Doleful Detective from Process of Elimination

Gourmet Detective from Process of Elimination

Rowdy Detective from Process of Elimination

Mystic Detective from Process of Elimination

Downtown Detective from Process of Elimination

Armor Detective from Process of Elimination

Halara Nightmare from Master Detective Archives: Raincode

Mashita Satoru from Spirit Hunter: Death Mark

Dogberry from Much Ado About Nothing

Shi Qiang from The Three Body Problem

Azuma Tsuyuri from Clock Over Orquesta

Cherry Ames from the Cherry Ames series

Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown from the Encyclopedia Brown series

Lobster Cop from the Frog Detective Series

Sandra the Fairytale Detective from Sandra the Fairytale Detective

Geronimo Stilton from the Geronimo Stilton series

Paul Prospero from The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Elijah Baley from the Robot series

Dirk Gently from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Suiri from Pop'n Music Lapistoria

Joan Watson from Elementary

Roquier from Puyo Puyo Quest

Holly Short from Artemis Fowl

Jo Martinez from Forever

Alex Parrish from Quantico

Cristóbal Cuevas from Cable Girls

Oskar Rheinhart from Vienna Blood

Emily Prentiss from Criminal Minds

Jane Doe from Blindspot

Dick Grayson from DC Comics

Ziva David from NCIS

Nell Jones from NCIS: Los Angeles

Lou Ransone from 9-1-1

Megan Hunt from Body of Proof

Cal Lightman from Lie to Me

Carrie Wells from Unforgettable

Spy Rise from Skylanders: SWAP Force

Flavia de Luce from the Flavia de Luce series

Camille Bordey from Death in Paradise

Florence Cassel from Death in Paradise

Jessica Jones from Jessica Jones

Charlie Eppes from Numb3rs

Elizabeth Keen from The Blacklist

James Hathaway from Lewis

Vern Loomis from Why Women Kill

Erika Furudo from Umineko

Sissel from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Lafcadio Boone from The Sexy Brutale

Lynne from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Mabel Mora from Only Murders in the Building

Oliver Putnam from Only Murders in the Building

Charles Haden Savage from Only Murders in the Building

Jowd from Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Scooby Doo from Scooby Doo

Daphne from Scooby Doo

Fred from Scooby Doo

Velma from Scooby Doo

Shaggy from Scooby Doo

Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4

Fenton Hardy from the Hardy Boys

Ema Skye from Ace Attorney

Natsuko Aki from Re: Cutie Honey

Naomi Misora from Death Note

Sakurako Kujou from Beautiful Bones -Sakurako's Investigation-

MaoMao from the Apothecary Diaries

Vic Sage/The Question from DC Comics

Detective Chimp from DC Comics

Madame Vastra from Doctor Who

Terry from Rune Factory 5

Cecil from Rune Factory 5

Chromedome from Transformers

Xie Lian from Heaven Official’s Blessing

Phosphophyllite from Houseki no Kuni

Sam Spud from Between the Lions

Dana Scully from the X-Files

Fox Mulder from the X-Files

Sherlock Holmes from Elementary

Barbie from the Detective Barbie series

Bill Stork from Hoodwinked

Nicky Flippers from Hoodwinked

Hercule Poirot from Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple

Ross Sylibus from Armitage III

Kansuke Yamato from Detective Conan

Kirill Vrubel from Double Decker! Doug & Kirill

Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation

Spencer Reed from Criminal Minds

Harrier Du Bois from Disco Elysium

Mário Fofoca from Elas Por Elas

Roxy Hunter from the Roxy Hunter series

Dr. Thomas Silkstone from the Dr. Thomas Silkstone series

Endeavour Morse from the Endeavor series

Vera Stanhope from Vera

Kristin Sims from the Brokenwood Mysteries

Brenda Johnson from The Closer

Rex from Hudson and Rex

Alec Hardy from Broadchurch

Billie Webber from Unit 42

Hannah Zeiler from Murder by the Lake

Sherlock Holmes from Moriarty the Patriot

Helena Wayne from DC Comics

Angel from Angel: The Series and Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Nick Knight from Forever Knight

Navia from Genshin Impact

Luo Wenzhou from Mo Du

Brother Cadfael from the Brother Cadfael Chronicles

Miss Maud Silver from the Miss Silver series

Fei Du from Mo Du

Mitsuko Hoshino from My Dear Detective: Mitsuko's Case Files

Saku Yoshida from My Dear Detective: Mitsuko's Case Files

Jake Peralta from Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Steven Stone from Pokémon

Anthony Lockwood from Lockwood and Co.

Thea Stilton from the Thea Stilton series

Saito Yakumo from Psychic Detective Yakumo

Dipper Pines from Gravity Falls

Pennington from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote

Tetsuo Tsutsumi from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

Jun Erio from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

Richter Kai from Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

Abe Lincoln from Who Killed Markiplier?

Steve Carella from the 87th Precinct Series

C. Auguste Dupin from the works of Edgar Allen Poe

Gesicht from Pluto

[jackson38toh]

The light and dark of language

(Note: We’re repeating this post for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It originally appeared on the blog on Dec. 16, 2009.)

Q: I teach cultural anthropology at the City University of New York. Some of my students have asked when the negative association with the color black first arose, as in “black sheep” or “black day” or “Black Death.” In other words, why is “angel food cake” white and “devil’s food cake” black? HELP!

A: This is a tall order!

It’s easy enough to say when some of the phrases you mention came into English. But it’s harder to tackle the notion of blackness or darkness as negative. This idea predated English and probably predated written language.

The word “black” has been in English since the earliest days of the language. In Old English in the eighth century it was written as blaec or blec, a word that was often confused with blac (white or shining).

The two words were even pronounced similarly at times, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In Middle English (spoken roughly between 1100 and 1500), they were “often distinguishable only by the context, and sometimes not by that.”

The etymological history of “black” is difficult to trace, according to the OED, but it may have come from Old Teutonic roots that originally meant scorched or charred or burned. We can only speculate here. A prehistoric Indo-European root reconstructed as bhleg meant “burn.”

The oldest definition of “black” cited in the OED is the optical one: “the total absence of colour, due to the absence or total absorption of light, as its opposite white arises from the reflection of all the rays of light.” This sense of the word was first recorded in writing in Beowulf in the 700s.

In the 1300s “black” was first used to mean soiled or stained with dirt, which the OED describes as a literal usage.

It wasn’t until the late 1580s that “black” was used figuratively to mean “having dark or deadly purposes, malignant; pertaining to or involving death, deadly; baneful, disastrous, sinister,” according to the OED.

The published usages include “black curse” (1583); “black name” and “black Prince” (1599, Shakespeare); “blacke edict” and “blacke victory” (1640); “black moment” (1713); “black enemy” (1758); and “black augury” (1821, Byron).

Around the same time, “black” took on other negative meanings, including horribly wicked or atrocious, as in “blacke soule” (1581); “blacke works” (1592); “blackest criminals” (1692); “blackest Calumnies” (1713); “black ingratitude” (1738, Macaulay); “the blackest dye” (1749, Fielding); and “black lie” (1839).

In the 17th and early 18th centuries, “black” also became identified with sorrow, melancholy, gloom, and dire predictions; a “black” outlook was pessimistic, whereas “bright” meant hopeful.

The word “blackguard” originally referred to dirtiness rather than to evildoing. It originated about 1535, and according to the OED it was first used first to refer to a scullery or kitchen worker, someone who had charge of pots and pans.

“Blackguard” was later used to describe a street urchin who worked as a shoe-black. In 1725, Jonathan Swift wrote of “The little black-guard / Who gets very hard / His halfpence for cleaning your shoes.”

And a 1785 slang dictionary described a “black guard” as “a shabby dirty fellow; a term said to be derived from a number of dirty tattered and roguish boys, who attended at the horse guards … to black the boots and shoes of the soldiers, or to do any other dirty offices.”

Boys who picked up odd jobs in the streets were also called “blackguards,” and in 1736 the term was first used to mean a scoundrel.

“Blackmail,” first recorded in 1552, originally meant protection money.

The OED defines its first meaning as “tribute formerly exacted from farmers and small owners in the border counties of England and Scotland, and along the Highland border, by freebooting chiefs, in return for protection or immunity from plunder.”

In those days, “mail” meant rent or tribute (its ancestor, the Old English mal, meant payment extorted by threats). But we can’t find any explanation for the “black” in the term, aside from the term’s earlier sense of soiled or dirty.

The phrase “black sheep” has been used to mean a bad character since the 1790s; according to legend, there was one in every flock.

The term “blacklisted” was recorded as far back as 1437. The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology suggests that the name indicated “edged with black.” The OED says the “black” in the term is from the negative sense of the word and means disgrace or censure.

However, the OED notes elsewhere that such a list was “often accompanied by some symbol actually black,” as in this 1840 citation from Charles Dickens’s novel Barnaby Rudge: “Write Curzon down, Denounced. … Put a black cross against the name of Curzon.”

Similarly, a “black mark” (meaning a mark of censure) was originally “a black cross or other mark made against the name of a person who has incurred censure, penalty, etc.,” the OED says. The first published use is from a novel by Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil (1845): “Won’t there be a black mark against you?”

As for the great plague of the 1300s, it wasn’t called the “Black Death” at the time. In the 14th century it was called “the pestilence,” “the plague,” “the great pestilence,” “the great death,” etc.

In English, the “black” wasn’t added until the early half of the 1800s, though it appeared in Swedish and Danish in the 1500s and in German in the 1700s.

The OED says it’s not known why the plague was called “black,” but The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) says it was because the disease caused dark splotches on the victims’ skin.

We can’t find anything in standard etymologies about “devil’s food,” but it may get its name either from its original color (red), or from its heaviness and density as opposed to “angel food,” which is weightless and feathery. A website called The Straight Dope has a good entry on the subject.

The metaphors in question aren’t Western notions, either. From what we’ve been able to find out, they’ve been around since the beginning of time, when people first became aware of the division of their world into day and night, light and dark.

From the point of view of primitive people, day brought with it light, sun, warmth, and of course visibility. Night was colder and darker; it was threatening and fearful, full of unseen dangers and hidden threats.

This ancient opposition between day and night, light and dark, became a common motif in mythology. It’s unfortunate that dark-skinned people, merely by the accident of skin color, have become victims of the mythology.

We’ve found an article that might have some ideas for you to share with your students. In it, the psychiatrist Eric Berne explores the folklore of our conceptions of light and dark, black and white, good and evil, clean and dirty, and so on.

The article is “The Mythology of Dark and Fair: Psychiatric Use of Folklore,” published in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 72, No. 283 (Jan.-Mar., 1959), pp. 1-13. You can get it through JSTOR, assuming CUNY subscribes to its digital archive. Skip the first page and go to the history, which begins on page 2.

Berne notes that the ideas of light=goodness and dark=badness existed in ancient cultures (including Egyptian and Greek), and can be found in Asia and around the globe.

Joseph Campbell, writing in the journal Daedalus in 1959, says it was the Persian philosopher Zoroaster (circa 600 BC) who put the seal on the concept of darkness being evil.

Zoroaster, Campbell writes, saw a “radical separation of light and darkness, together with his assignment to each of an ethical value, the light being pure and good, the darkness foul and evil.”

The Old and New Testaments are full of such dichotomies. In later Christian writings, the bright angel Lucifer transgresses and is thrown out of heaven (which is, of course, flooded with light), to become the dark lord of night.

In Paradise Lost, Milton writes that the flames of hell produce “No light, but rather darkness visible.”

For what it’s worth, we don’t believe that metaphors identifying lightness as positive and darkness as negative are inherently racist. They certainly didn’t begin that way, though these negative connotations have certainly fed into and reinforced racism over the centuries.

Your students may also be interested in a recent item on The Grammarphobia Blog about the word “nigger” and its evolution (for some African-Americans) into a positive term through a process that has been called semantic bleaching.

The blog entry cites a paper by Arthur K. Spears, a linguist and anthropologist at CUNY. We’ll bet he could direct you to other sources of information about the mythology of blackness.

We hope some of this is useful to you.

Help support the Grammarphobia Blog with your donation. And check out our books about the English language.

from Blog – Grammarphobia http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2017/01/light-and-dark.html

[detectivereads]

Middle Grade

Hi Everyone,

Here are some of the recommendations for middle grade mysteries and other books

Mysteries:

SpongeBob SquarePants Mysteries Find A Missing Star

SpongeBob SquarePants Mysteries Ooze in the Ocean

SpongeBob SquarePants Mysteries Stage Fright!

The Swifts A Dictionary of Scoundrels

Horror/ Spooky:

Deephaven